The weekend

is the best time because we get to do the fun stuff. Books and tea are among my favorite things and when you can have them together at a bookshop with a café then I feel very close to heaven.

Perfectly creamy chai tea latte

I want to keep up my french so I got "L'elegance de l'herisson" (The elegance of the hedgehog) by Muriel Barbary, it is supposed to be good. And also a cooking book for stews and the like. We just got a dutch oven as a delayed wedding gift (I have been wanting one since forever) and now I want to make the most of it. So far the only recipe I know is Ratatouille. We had friends over on Friday, and I enjoy cooking for people.

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Then, later, we went for a walk in our neighborhood and we discovered a new park and Snow White's well. Love to be surrounded by so much green. And we were blessed with a rare sunny day, I even got to wear a dress. Dresses make me happy.

Yes, I am in fact a 5-year-old

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And you, what were you up to this weekend? 

Scrapbooking

Working on the unofficial album I made

 is one of my favorite things to do. And I should do it more often. I have folders and folders of things I keep from trips and life (newspaper cutouts, train tickets, museum guides, and all kinds of very random stuff). Somehow in this era of digital photography where you make the same pic 12 times, we have more "memories" but we tend not to print them as much as before. As back in the day when coming back from a vacation one of the first things I would look forward to was developing those pics. And it's not even so long ago. Maybe I am old fashioned and late in getting on new trends and technology, but in 2004 I still had a camera that used actual rolls of film. We just got our official wedding album, but the photographer left lots of blank space for us to fill. Problem is, before that I had already made my own album, complete with all kinds of little things that the boy just calls junk (magazine cutouts, a handkerchief my aunt gave me on the day, the pressed flower I had on my hair, a swatch from the dress that I got when I first chose it) and now, I don't have physical "scraps" of memories left to attach in this new album.

I am seriously considering on "ripping" apart our guestbook, cutting out the messages from people and pasting them in the space we have in the new album. I am not sure if that would be some sort of crime.It is a very nice notebook, the kind that is covered in cloth. But I like the idea, and anyway more than half of that book is blank. And emptiness makes me nervous. I am constantly thinking on what we should do to fill up all those blank spaces. I think I might be a bit crazy.

Remember clueless?

Well I feel like Alicia Silverstone's friend in that movie right now. The one that gets the full makeover. Of course I have a very personal style, but that means I love colors, patterns, flowers, and everything that's different. I have an interview today (out of my field) and according to everything I read I should wear something like this:

From here

Truth is, I don't own gray clothes. The sky here is already gray thank you very much. I also don't own the other options allowed, which are red* or navy blue or BLACK. Why would one want to dress so sad?  I do not own khaki pants. And the tailored clothes I do own are elegant party dresses. Way too shiny.I get it, it's about being serious, it's about a uniform, but color clothing doesn't make me less serious (though apparently, yes it does).
 *Actually I do own lots of red, but it is all casual dresses
And let's not start on the shoes, because all I own is, again, either this kind of shoe:

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or boots, or flat Mary Janes, casual ballerinas and then again fancy party shoes. (you can see some at the end of this post). Way too sparkly, or with open toes, another faux-pas, as I learnt in all these constructive reading I've been up too. It's good that I already did all the preparing and practising with the boy this morning because it seems to me I have to shop for one thing or 2. How superficial. I thought the important part was to be me, to be professional.

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Update: this is the oufit I actually wore:

A french recipe

I always wanted to learn how to make a clafoutis. It is so pretty to look at, and so delicious.

 As I learnt from the Wikipedia, its origins are in the "Limousin" region of France. Funny, when I hear the word Limousin what comes to my mind is a cow.

I think these cows are "Charolais" though.

 The original dessert is made with black cherries, unpitted. It is actually the "bone" that helps the "dough" set and adds to the flavour. But I decided to be adventurous and try with strawberries. The word itself comes from the Occitan clafotis and means to fill. Oh and strictly speaking when a fruit other than cherries is used the name of this dessert is "Flaugnarde". I adapted the recipe from this one, decided to use no butter (except for greasing the tart form) and I used brown sugar only. The texture of this dessert is something between a flan and a crepe, very moist, with all the fruitiness (is that a word ?) in between.

 You will need:
500 gr. strawberries (or your fruit of choice, I really want to try with peaches or abricots).
3 eggs
100 gr. brown sugar
125 gr. flour
300 ml. milk
A little butter

What to do:
-Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
-Wash, stem and cut the strawberries in slices or pieces (not to small) and put them in a bowl with half the sugar (50gr). Let sit for about half an hour, until they get syrupy.
-Beat the eggs, as if you were preparing an omelette. Add the milk, the rest of the sugar, and finally the sifted flour. Mix until smooth.
-Grease a tart form with butter or oil as you prefer. Arrange the strawberries in the tart form, and then pour the mix over it.
-Bake for 40 min. (mine took longer, around 50 min) until a toothpick comes out dry.
-According to different recipes I read, if you like you can sprinkle with confectioners sugar when serving (I forgot, but didn't miss the extra sweetness).
-And finally, the time to enjoy before it magically disappears !

It is in the small things

where happiness is hidden. In the "little"moments that we make for each other. Like, when on Sunday morning we decide to make breakfast special and actually eat on our dining table (instead of  in the kitchen or the couch).

 Or when go for a walk to the park. When we have a little chat with the kids of our neighbors that are at that talkative extroverted stage where they make up stories. They come to you and tell you how they took the train to visit their grandma and how they ate tons of candy. Even when their dad is there certifying that no, they didn't go by train, but by car.

And there is joy in going to the center to get a box of strawberries just to make this:

Technology revolutions

I do realize that we are living a new era in which the way we communicate and interact is changing the World we live in, in many, many different ways. I've known  this for a while of course. I belong to a generation that wasn't born with the internet, so I saw it happen and develop. I remember, when it all started. I was 14 or something and at multimedia class we would send emails to each other, even if we were all sitting in the same classroom. And no, I am not what you would call a "techy", sure I've had email all along, but I started Facebook late, this blog last month, and Twitter is something I still don't get.
This weekend, was my best friend's wedding, in Mexico, and as hard as we tried, it was not possible for us to be there. And yes, I read all about how wedding's should be unplugged over at Offbeat Bride. I agree, to a certain point. But it was because of this magical devices that let you take pictures and videos and upload them directly that I was able to be present, live. That I was able to watch my best friend getting married, as it happened across the ocean.

Walking down the aisle, with her dad.

 And it was invaluable, and amazing and incredible. It felt like when people all over the world were watching this other wedding moment by moment. Except this time, I cared. (At least I cared a whole lot more than just about a dress). It is the same technology that out of nowhere leads you to meet great new people that I am sure will become friends. And I have to thank gmail chat for bringing me close to The Boy, after our first one time, 10-hour meeting. Our long talks and laughs was what made us decide to see each other and brought us where we are.

*Thanks to my dear brother in law, Carlo, who uploaded everything live so I could watch and be present at my best friends' wedding. And thanks to Tim Hopwood who shared this video.
**Congratulations Martha and Andy, if you ever read this.